


Here Be Monsters

by Glinda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Assassination, Developing Friendships, Gen, Identity Issues, Super Soldier Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 08:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9540221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: He stands in the palm of a monster. The monster calls him friend. He calls the monster Hulk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: _Conjured this tempestuous rage_ which is from Do What You Have to Do by Sarah McLachlan
> 
> Set not long post CA:WS, before Civil War and for that matter pre Age of Ultron.

He stands in the palm of a monster. Ten foot tall and green, his destructive rage quietened. He’s never seen anything like it, yet the creature seems oddly familiar, emotions writ large and clear on his over-sized features. 

“Soldier.” The monster grinds out, “Soldier, like me? Soldier running away.”

Something bitter rises up in his throat like bile, but when he chokes on it, it comes out sounding like laughter. Pieces of memory collate in his frazzled brain, a strange certainty, this is what happens when the super soldier experiments go wrong. The creature grins back, with too many teeth, like he gets the joke.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “sorry I forgot about you. Too busy running for my life.”

“Hulk and soldier safe for now,” the creature states, and yeah he’d forgotten, the creature called itself Hulk. Breathing heavily but mostly calm, Hulk is only terrifying the way a fifty foot waterfall or a tornedo is terrifying. A force of nature, incredible and awesome in the literal senses. 

Hulk lowers his hand to the ground, letting him down. “Rest now,” he rumbles and then folds in on himself like something out of a cartoon. The man lying unconscious and mostly naked in Hulk’s wake is oddly familiar too.

~

By the time the other man has woken up, he’s found him some spare clothes, and settled on using James to identify himself with. (He still shies away form using Bucky or Barnes even inside his own head, but James seems safe and neutral enough. He ignores the whispered echo of a young woman’s voice, wry and fond, calling him Yasha.) 

“Banner,” James begins hesitantly, he’s almost certain that was the name on the file he was given before, a rare failure on his part. 

The other man acknowledges his name with a nod, and stares up at James, as though trying to place him. James had been wearing a mask then, so he covers his face with his metal hand and watches recognition dawn. No fear though, but then James remembers viscerally watching this man close his eyes, a bitter smile on his lips, and an insincere apology as he…as the soldier had pulled the trigger. Remembers the Hulk exploding outwards, pausing only to spit out the bullets, like a handful of cherry stones.

“If they’ve sent you to try and kill me again…” Banner begins.

“No. Wouldn’t work anyway, but no. Just.” His voice is rough and James struggles to get more than a couple of words out at a time, but he keeps going. “I saw Hulk. Saw the people after him. They look awful lot like the ones after me. Figured I’d help him out, kill a few Nazis, repay a debt. He seemed to appreciate it.”

“Yeah, you survived the Other Guy before, I think he respects that kind of thing,” Banner offers wryly. 

“We’re more alike than we seem,” James agrees. 

Banner eyes him carefully for a long moment before replying. “Well, I’d ask whose side you’re on, but honestly right now, not Hydra’s is enough to be going on with.” 

James shrugs, that’s enough for him too, anything more complex is going to have to wait until he actually knows who he is now. “Guess its much the same for me as for Hulk, I’m on the side of whoever doesn’t want to put me in a cage and…” he chokes on the end of that sentence. 

“Only lets you out to use as a weapon?” Banner asks. “Yeah, I reckon there are few enough people still interested in the man rather than the monster, aren’t we a right pair.” 

~

They don’t stay together long, they’re too conspicuous a pair, but its, almost nice while they do. Banner is smart and interesting; good at explaining things about this century that James has never had the opportunity to ask about. It’s helpful to have someone to bounce ideas and thoughts against, to figure out who he is now. James’ past is a black hole of grief and guilt and rage, and Banner absolutely doesn’t want to talk about his own past. 

James doesn’t remember having a conversation longer than a couple of sentences that was this free of baggage in seventy years. 

For all that they represent each other’s worst fears about their respective conditions, it’s a surprisingly honest companionship they’ve formed. It’s comfortable, for both of them, he thinks. They don’t have to lie, or pretend, or be careful with each other. They can’t hurt each other even if they want to and James suspects that’s as much a relief to Banner as it is to him.

~

They’re in the middle of a fire fight when they part ways. There is suddenly a heck of a lot more people on their side than there was five minute before. Well, on Hulk’s side anyway, as Hulk nods recognition to the weird assortment of a team that have piled in. But when James find himself facing down the weapon of the man in an honest to goodness red and gold suit of flying armour, Hulk roars his disapproval and sweeps James out of the line of fire. Placing him on one shoulder, a clear message of solidarity and also an excellent vantage point for James to pick off Hydra soldiers with his sniper rifle. James even thinks he sees a familiar Shield flying through the air, but he can’t deal with that right now, can’t think about what that means. He lets his mind disconnect, lets it slide into the quiet calm place it goes when he’s shooting and gets to work.

Once things start to calm down, James comes back to himself when Hulk gently lowers him back to the ground. It’s just the two of them but it won’t be for long, he can hear a couple of the team calling to Hulk, voices coming closer with every shout. 

Hulk turns to James, offering his giant hand, “Soldier, come with? Fight with Hulk friends?” He asks, giant forehead crinkling with the effort of forming sentences.

James shakes his head, tamping down desperately on the desire to run like hell, he doesn’t want to spook Hulk but he sure as hell isn’t ready to be around other people.

“Not yet,” he offers, as compensation. He reaches out with his metal hand and squeezes the tip of the finger Hulk raises in return. “Be safe, both of you.”

Hulk nods acceptingly, “James be safe too.”

A hauntingly familiar woman’s voice addresses Hulk, stealing his attention.

“Did Hulk make a friend?” She asks, wry and fond.

“Yes,” rumbles Hulk, expression oddly fond and James runs like hell.


End file.
